Last fall, the Howard County Public School System (HCPSS) distributed “Guidelines for Supporting Transgender and Gender Nonconforming Students” to school system administrators in an effort to protect students identifying as transgender or gender nonconforming. The guidelines seek to foster inclusiveness, covering definitions, student privacy, names and pronouns, transitions, restroom and locker use, athletics, dress codes and clubs, according to a memorandum introducing them.

Brian Bassett, senior communication strategist for the school system, says that HCPSS has had informal supports in place to support transgender and gender nonconforming students, their families and school community for several years.

What is new, he says, is that HCPSS has worked to deepen its understanding ofstudents’ needs and “to support them in a more comprehensive manner by training staff, developing guidelines and engaging stakeholders.” Before developing the guidelines, HCPSS staff met with LGBTQ students, staff and community partners to seek input and to ensure that the staff guidelines align with the student needs.

Bassett says the best story is the one that never has to be told. “It’s the student who doesn’t suffer from acts of discrimination because they are in an inclusive environment,” he says. The guidelines, he says, will help to ensure that students don’t have obstacles that can derail their overall well-being and success.

Ultimately, Bassett says, HCPSS is committed to providing an education and work environment that is free from discrimination, while fostering opportunities for all its students.

]]>The (He)art of the Dealhttps://hermindmagazine.com/heart-of-the-deal/
Tue, 25 Jun 2019 17:03:23 +0000https://hermindmagazine.com/?p=15333By: Carolyn J .Lynch Perhaps you inherited a Romaire Bearden oil from your grandmother’s estate. Or maybe you picked up a black and white photograph from your neighbor’s daughter’s art show at the local coffee shop. What constitutes art is personal. But in some cases, ignoring its potential to diversify your investment portfolio–along with the […]

Perhaps you inherited a Romaire Bearden oil from your grandmother’s estate. Or maybe you picked up a black and white photograph from your neighbor’s daughter’s art show at the local coffee shop.

What constitutes art is personal. But in some cases, ignoring its potential to diversify your investment portfolio–along with the tax ramifications that come with buying and selling art–could be a disservice to your net worth. When it comes to art, love and liquidity need not be mutually exclusive.

Since the early 2000s art, particularly contemporary fine art, has emerged as a lucrative and legitimate asset class in investment portfolios–among the usual suspects of equity stocks, bonds and real estate.

So why not start a collection? Let’s begin with a word of caution: Don’t expect high returns … just yet. Though returns on art have generally outpaced typical equity stocks over the last decade, keep in mind that those returns are based on fewer transactions than trades among traditional financial instruments and commodities. Furthermore, data are based on high dollar transactions, and often, owners have had pieces in their possession for several years.

If you’re looking to hold on to piece of art long enough to see serious appreciation you should make sure you enjoy having it around. Seek out works that inspire or touch you. Does it make you happy or spark a deep connection?

While high end auctions and sales may not be accessible to everyone, opportunities to get in front of emerging artists and reputable sellers exist. Start with an artist’s entry level tier works and build a relationship, suggests Stephanie Barton of Investopedia. “Learn about their education, commissions and exhibits.” Connect with gallery owners and other venues that showcase work you like. Go to events. Become an insider.

Local auction houses are often replenished weekly with art and collectibles from estate liquidations. Online auction houses and databases are equally well stocked these days, and are available to all bidders. But novices should use extreme caution. If you are interested in a piece you see online, try to look at it in person if at all possible, or ask the auctioneer for authentication.

If your collection starts with a gift–an inheritance or bequest from a friend or relative–find out what it is worth. Substantiating the original cost is important whatever your plans for keeping or selling. When art is inherited, its value is “stepped up” to fair market value at the time of the decedent’s death. Art that is gifted generally maintains its original cost basis, but the tax ramifications are more complex and may require additional tax filings for the giver.

If you do end up selling a work of art, remember that the buyer should pay sales and use tax to the seller. The seller is responsible for submitting tax to the proper authorities. Keep in mind, if you have benefitted from a gain on a sale there will be tax consequences.

Consider art as a long-term investment. The art market can show huge returns in boom times, but it can also be fickle, with values plummeting during recessionary times. Likewise, styles of art go in and out of fashion.

With some effort, education and thoughtful planning, you can begin to build your own collection to enjoy now. And who knows? Someday it may be worth something.

Carolyn J .Lynch, CPA is a director at Central Maryland CPA, a full-service tax and accounting practice, headquartered in Fulton.

]]>Art Workhttps://hermindmagazine.com/art-work/
Tue, 18 Jun 2019 14:11:05 +0000https://hermindmagazine.com/?p=15217Theresa Colvin combines her love of art with her business acumen Interview by Martha Thomas Theresa Colvin executive director of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, recently received the Coleen West Leadership in the Arts Award, one of the Howard County Arts Council’s Howie Awards. Previously, she was executive director of the Maryland State Arts Council […]

Theresa Colvin executive director of the Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation, recently received the Coleen West Leadership in the Arts Award, one of the Howard County Arts Council’s Howie Awards. Previously, she was executive director of the Maryland State Arts Council and served as deputy director and acting executive director of the Howard County Arts Council. Colvin has also served on the boards of the National Endowment for the Arts and Americans for the Arts.

Q: How did you become interested in the arts?

I grew up in Philadelphia and come from a large family. My dad used to take us every Sunday to the Philadelphia Museum of Art. I loved that because I was able to go off and explore art on my own. In high school I got involved with glee club and musical theater and started performing. I was the ingenue, my first role was Kim MacAfee in Bye Bye Birdie.I was expected to go to business school so I went to LaSalle University. I worked full time and went to night school. After I graduated, things were going well; I liked the corporate structure.

Q: So your business background transitioned to arts administration?

When my mother died, she left each of us a little bit of money and I wanted to do something meaningful with it. I thought, well, what do I really want to do? What do I care about and what brings me the most joy? The arts made me feel most alive. There was an arts administration program at Drexel University—they offered me a fellowship.

Q: When you initially went to college, were you afraid a career in the arts wouldn’t be lucrative?

I didn’t have enough faith in myself to believe I could make it as a performer. I’d done a lot of research on what it would take and I realized that I’m built to want stability. That’s why I chose arts administration.

Q: Sounds strategic.

I was not a risk taker. I was more methodical and analytical. When I was getting my masters, I had internships. I was working at theater companies, which was my first love. I moved to Maryland in 1991 because I had been cast in a show at Burn Brae dinner theater in Burtonsville.

Q: What was the role?

Ado Annie (in Oklahoma!)—of course. Can’t say no. It was a great experience. I lived with friends who still live in Howard County. We lived in a town house in Owen Brown, and we did shows together. I met someone at the theater and got married and decided to stay in Howard County; we bought our first town house in Columbia. Both of our girls were born at Howard County General and have gone through the school system.

Q: What are you most proud of in your career?

I’ve been fortunate. When I worked at the Howard County Arts Council, I learned what community-based work can mean to young people. We received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. This was the mid-90s and we were one of the smallest communities at that time to ever have received an award. We’d been competing against Atlanta, Houston and all these cities, and here we were Ellicott City, Maryland. We put artists-in-residence in schools for an extended period and the projects that came out were quite powerful. One was an intergenerational project; we had 10-year-olds talking about what they thought life was going to be like when they were in their 60s. They worked with seniors, who talked about what life was like when they were 10.

Q: The arts are good for our health and well-being, right?

In the last 10-15 years, the research is unassailable. One program the NEA has spearheaded works with veterans, particularly those with traumatic brain injury and PTSD, having them go through art therapy. It’s not just for them but for their family members. The work has had a dramatic impact when it comes to relieving pain, anxiety and depression.

Q: The studies about the physiological benefits are probably a strong selling point.

We love data.

Q: Many arts institutions are rethinking the way they curate and present their collections in order to acknowledge a wider range of artists. How does that affect what you do?

Equity, diversity and inclusion—I don’t know one arts organization I’ve come in contact with in the last several years that isn’t considering those issues. As funders we have a responsibility to really look at those gates we’ve put up in the past.

Q: That requires almost relearning what we think of as art history.

We work very hard to appoint representatives from across a broad spectrum. Some are trained formally, some not. One of the other things I’m most proud of was work we did at the Maryland State Arts Council to identify and celebrate traditions that are passed down. For example, an iron maker, G. Krug & Sons Ironworks. It’s still all handmade. There’s the decoy carver on the Eastern Shore; screen painting, the tradition in Baltimore. There’s also food—the Smith Island cake, for example, this multilayered cake.

Q: You consider that art?

Yes, it’s a foodway, it’s passed on through an oral tradition from one generation to the next. It came out of a community. Art can be foodways, it’s occupational, it’s material culture, it could be storytelling. Some of the watermen and the stories they tell … these are things we tried to put a spotlight on at the State Arts Council. Maryland is one of the most diverse states in the country. We have people from all over the world, and these are community expressions that have just as much value as any other type of art you might be familiar with. When you represent that to people, they’re like, ‘Alright, I see that your definition of art is expansive.’ One thing I’ve always said is err on the side of inclusion rather than exclusion.

]]>All that Glitterhttps://hermindmagazine.com/all-that-glitter/
Tue, 18 Jun 2019 14:10:04 +0000https://hermindmagazine.com/?p=15215Artistic kids revel in self-expression By Krista Threefoot Any parent who has had to sort through their child’s preschool artwork can be forgiven for resenting Pablo Picasso and his famous quote that “every child is an artist.” This may be true, but he left out a few important facts: every child artist is prolific, messy […]

Artistic kids revel in self-expression

Any parent who has had to sort through their child’s preschool artwork can be forgiven for resenting Pablo Picasso and his famous quote that “every child is an artist.”

This may be true, but he left out a few important facts: every child artist is prolific, messy and can locate your stash of Sharpies no matter where you hide them.

Somewhere in our attic I have a box with approximately 200 drawings of human stick figures. Paint and permanent marker have stained our kitchen table so deeply even acetone can’t remove their marks. I’m still vacuuming eight years’ worth of glitter from our carpets. Samples from my children’s artistic oeuvres wallpaper our home.

I’m not complaining—and I do take Picasso’s words to heart. He’s right. Children are artists, because they see the world through artist’s eyes. Their fresh perspective allows them to notice details and draw unique conclusions about what they observe.

For example, when my younger daughter was 6, she asked to sketch a portrait of me. She sat herself down across from me studio-style, working earnestly, with a goal of accuracy. The resulting picture included my smile lines, forehead wrinkles and under-eye circles.

I spent the next hour researching Botox, but I was still impressed. It didn’t occur to her that people expect portraits to be flattering. She drew what she saw: her mom, exactly as she was—a tired, middle-aged woman.

When children create art, they expose us to a universe that is still new and unexplored. Their insights of everything from nature to the words we use come from the perspective of someone who is still learning what adults already know.

I experienced this recently with my other daughter. Her art teacher had selected one of my daughter’s works for the Hello I am…exhibit at the Columbia Art Center, which featured autobiographical artwork on poster-sized replicas of name badges. Some kids drew self-portraits, but most used decorative lettering to form a word they felt described them—artist, poet, reader, athlete, sister and so on. My daughter’s piece read, “Hello I am… PSYCHO!” in stark black, psychedelic bubble letters.

Fortunately for all of us, her definition of psycho is “hyper and silly,” not “speaks to corpses and stabs people in motel room showers.”

For several years I have worked as chairperson for a PTA art competition that challenges kids to reflect on a theme and interpret it through various forms of art. Just like my daughter’s understanding of the word psycho, their perceptions never fail to inspire or amuse me.

The 2018 theme was Heroes Around Me. Among our submissions were a story about a tree that fought pollution ninja-style, and another about a princess who rebelled against her oppressive parents by making friends and teaching manners to an evil witch.

One kindergartener painted his teacher during a lockdown drill—she was a hero for making them feel safe in a scary situation. A second-grader drew her mom with nine arms, doing everything, and explained that we all have at least one heroic moment in our lives.

Previous years’ entries have been just as charming. Within Reach brought us a story about a cat who stole a gift from his enemy, the dog, got for his grandmother, because being within reach is a defining characteristic of stolen object. For The World Would Be a Better Place If… we got a cereal-box replica of SpongeBob, because the world would be better if everyone were as kind as he.

These gems of self-expression are worth developing, and we have numerous opportunities in our area to help our children do just that.

The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore offers free drop-in workshops for children every Saturday and Sunday, 11-4. The Visionary Art Museum has monthly walk-in workshops, which cost $5 per participant. The Howard County Art Council and the Columbia Art Center offer classes in a variety of media for everyone in the family.

Kids can explore computer-based design and filmmaking at IdeaLab, a STEM-based learning center. Musical Theatrix and Drama Learning Center stage year-round theater classes and camps. At School of Rock and Olenka School of Music, children can take instrumental and voice lessons. Visual art classes are available through Howard County Recreation and Parks in partnership with Abrakadoodle and KidzArt.

And make sure to mark you calendar for the Columbia Festival of the Arts, June 14-30, which has free art activities in everything from dance to writing, in addition to some stellar shows.

My family has participated in many of these programs, and we’ve benefitted greatly. And the best part is that the mess stays out of our house. It’s much easier to value the artist within our children when glitter and glue sticks are out of the picture.

At Roll Up N Dye, staining clothes can be fun

By Elizabeth Heubeck

Erin Cassell, tie-dye artist and owner of Columbia tie-dye studio Roll Up N Dye, is wearing a pink slouchy zip-up sweatshirt, tie-dyed yoga pants, and white athletic socks but no shoes. As she settles into a chair and tucks her feet under her, I get the sense that I’ve known her a lot longer than a few minutes.

Cassell, an Elkridge resident, grew up in Anne Arundel County. “My best memories from childhood involve going into the woods and wandering around and exploring, swamp tromping,” says the 39-year-old. “Most of the time by myself.”

Cassell who favors words like “groovy,” resembles a 1970s teen unconstrained by social conventions. She originally took on tie-dye as a means of self-expression but now uses the craft to help others—from the groups who come to her studio to tie-dye for a few hours for fun or for professional team-building, to marginalized members of her community.

Cassell, who received a theater degree from then-Western Maryland College (now McDaniel), doesn’t hold strict definitions of what it means to be an artist. “Everyone’s an artist,” she says. “It’s not a matter of the product. It’s a matter of the experience.”

Her first foray into tie-dyeing was creating unique onesies for her infant daughter, who is now 10. When she was pregnant, Cassell bought professional-grade fiber reactive dyes that wouldn’t bleed onto her baby’s skin or fade in the wash. Then she invited some friends to tie-dye with her. And, as they say, the die was cast.

Initially, Cassell, an avid runner and cyclist, sold tie-dye products to friends to help raise entry fees for charity triathlons and cycling events. Encouraged by the positive response to her offerings, she soon opened an Etsy site, where she continues to maintain a robust online shop with tie-dye T-shirts, boxer briefs, trademark Heart Ass panties and made-to-order silk scarves.

Sharing the tie-dye experience

As Cassell’s presence on Etsy began to expand, so too did her studio business. After a soft launch in 2011, she got serious about her studio tie-dyeing business in 2013, when she incorporated Roll Up N Dye and moved to her current Columbia studio on Red Branch Road.

Lately, she’s been re-evaluating the focus of her business. Initially, she says, “I was trying to figure out how everyone could be my customer,” she says.However, she has started to see that being all things to all potential customers isn’t practical or possible.

Cassell’s favorite part of the business is teaching, she says, so lately she’s been spending more time hosting tie-dyeing workshops at her studio. These hands-on events are frequently more than just art classes; many become unique team building experiences for assemblages ranging from youth sports teams to employee groups.

Scott Habicht, director of support at SparkPost, an email infrastructure delivery provider, does his best to put together creative bonding sessions for the staff, some of whom hail from as far as China, Italy and England. Recently, he hosted about 40 employees of the Columbia-based firm at Cassell’s studio. The tie-dyeing outing, he says, has gotten better reviews than go-carting, video games and bowling.

“The overwhelming reception was fantastic,” he reports. “Everybody really loved doing it.” In addition to creating tie-dye shirts for themselves, employees also made bandanas and decorated cards with handwritten notes for pediatric patients at John Hopkins Children’s Center, where Cassell volunteers.

Community outreach

Cassell says she likes to infuse a little community service into her business, a habit that began when she was a child. In fact, it was working on a volunteer project in middle school that Cassell first encountered the pun that would eventually become her brand.

“We were driving through a town and I saw a hair salon called Curl Up and Dye,” she says. “It made me laugh so hard.” The name, if not the business idea, stuck.

Similarly, when Cassell observes injustice and hardship suffered by others, she can’t let go. Last year, she drove Howard County’s Route 1 on a daily basis and noticed the condition of public bus stops—many close to the road, most without shelter. She decided to do something about it.

She entered the Changemaker Challenge, a Horizon Foundation and United Way initiative that asks community members for ideas about how to improve life in Howard County. Cassell’s vision, called Safe and Beautiful Bus Stops, included installing benches made from recycled material, public art, tiny libraries and trash receptacles at bus stops. She received $10,000 in seed money from the challenge and is currently working with the county and others to implement her plan.

Cassell’s approach to the bus shelter issue resembles her overall business style: broad vision first followed by the details, which, incidentally, may change over time. Nonetheless, the core principles of her business model are fixed: “I think it’s important that people get out and experience art, whatever that form is,” she says.

More Opportunities for Off-the-Beaten Track Team Building

Team building. The commonly heard buzzword refers to activities that experts say make sense—for both employee morale and a company’s bottom line. Spending time together in a fun, relaxed activity can draw employees out of their comfort zones and encourages collaboration and trust. Howard County and the surrounding area offer lots of opportunities for team-building opportunities.

For the Love of Food Cooking classes, some designed specifically as “culinary team building.” Pikesville, fortheloveoffood.com.

Watson Adventures Scavenger Hunt Scavenger hunts billed as “corporate team-building with a dash of culture” that take participants through museums and historic neighborhoods in Baltimore and Annapolis, watsonadventures.com.

]]>Screendance Filmshttps://hermindmagazine.com/screendance-films/
Tue, 18 Jun 2019 14:08:05 +0000https://hermindmagazine.com/?p=15201Pamela Woolford’s Generation travels the film festival circuit By Anne Haddad In Generation, Pamela Woolford’s debut as a filmmaker, an elderly woman looks back on her life, telling a story. She seems to be on a porch, indicated by the play of light and the glimpse of clapboard. The image on screen shifts to one […]

Pamela Woolford’s Generation travels the film festival circuit

By Anne Haddad

In Generation, Pamela Woolford’s debut as a filmmaker, an elderly woman looks back on her life, telling a story. She seems to be on a porch, indicated by the play of light and the glimpse of clapboard. The image on screen shifts to one of a younger woman who is also telling the story—or maybe a different one—but not with words. At least three more stories are told within the narrative—fragments alluding to the work of Marcel Proust, O. Henry and Guy de Maupassant. These elements flow into a visual and aural narrative through the lens of three generations of African-American women.

“Storytelling is the way we communicate with each other,” says Woolford, of Columbia. “Stories are the background music to our lives.”

Woolford’s film is making the rounds at film festivals in the U.S. and abroad, including London, Tokyo and Stockholm and winning awards at some of them. Generation took the jury award for the category “best experimental film, animation film or music video” at the North Beach American Film Festival in North Beach, Maryland.

The award was a surprise, she says, because animated films were in the same category as experimental, and one of them was Sgt. Stubby: An American Hero, with characters voiced by big-name actors, including Helena Bonham Carter.

“I’d seen the trailers for the animations, and I figured I didn’t have a chance,” she says. “It was a spectacular way to start my run with this film, winning that award.”

Pamela Woolford dances in the barn at the Howard County Conservancy. The barn’s exterior was one of the locations she used in her film Generation.

Multidisciplinary Storytelling

In her film, Woolford performs on camera as dancer and actor. The narrator reads an adaptation of the filmmaker’s own short story, “Just After Supper,” which was published in 2016 in Origins Journal and can be accessed via the website, pamelawoolford.com. Last year, author Mark Wisniewski nominated Woolford’s short story for a Pushcart Prize.

Generation was inspired by her mother’s stories of growing up in North Carolina in the 1930s-50s, when a library van brought books to her rural community, stopping at each individual home. A female African-American voice retells some of the stories from classic literature, in the context of a more personal story of surviving domestic abuse and finding joy, while Woolford performs the story onscreen through dance and facial expression.

“I’ve always described the film as inspired by my mother’s life,” Woolford says. “But it was inspired by my own, as well.”

Woolford loved the fairy tales her mother would read to her at night, but her appetite for these stories exceeded the supply, so her mother drew upon the classics she had read during her life.

“I grew up thinking that O. Henry and Guy de Maupassant were children’s writers,” Woolford laughs. She pays homage to the O’Henry story ‘The Last Leaf,’ about an aging artist who saves a young girl dying of pneumonia with the realistic rendition of an ivy leaf—even at the expense of his own life. The story, she says, meant a lot to her when she was a child.

Woolford has lived in Columbia since she was 2 years old, minus a few years in New York City after college and, later, Washington, D.C., and the surrounding area. On the road to becoming a full-time artist, she worked in public relations and development for nonprofit organizations and in journalism. She co-founded and edited Howard County’s Jambalaya magazine in the 1990s, celebrating the diversity of people of African descent, and wrote about east Columbia as a community correspondent for the Baltimore Sun Howard edition.

Her parents were active and well known in Howard County and, not surprisingly, also part of its creative community.

Pamela Woolford was inspired by the women in her family, including her mother the Rev. Sadie Woolford, who co-founded St. John the Evangelist Church in Columbia.

Her mother is the Rev. Sadie Woolford, a writer and an associate pastor at St. John the Evangelist Baptist Church, which she co-founded in the 1970s in Columbia. The Rev. Woolford is executive producer of her daughter’s film.

Both Sadie Woolford and her late husband, Llewellyn Woolford, Sr., were active in community theater, and he had studied under Roscoe Lee Brown. Llewellyn Woolford was a chairman of the Howard County Human Relations Commission and a partner in the Baltimore firm Howard, Woolford and Leeds. He died in 2012. One of his partners had been married to the great jazz singer Ethel Ennis, who died earlier this year.

Sadie Woolford, a technical writer for the federal government, began to write creative nonfiction after she took early retirement in 1991. In 1996, she became a preacher—a move her daughter wasn’t crazy about.

An agnostic, Woolford says she had to get used to her mother being a preacher. “I didn’t want that for her because I probably had a stereotype about what that meant.” She admits she wasn’t sure what that stereotype was.“We’d always been so close, and I think I wanted her to be me, in some way, which sounds ridiculous when I say it out loud.”

Making Film Out of Order

When it came time to make her film, Woolford says, she didn’t follow a conventional timeline.

“A lot of conceptualization happened early on,” she says, in collaboration with the cinematographer, Columbia artist Denée Barr.

Barr approached her with the idea of a collaboration. “She said I should dance in it,” says Woolford. “I developed the concept and brought on my mother as executive director.”

Soon Woolford came across the French African singer and beatmaker Loren The Storyteller on Instagram. She was living in Paris at the time. “I especially hoped to use music or beats by a black woman, as the story is a black woman’s story,” says Woolford.

The shooting was completed in 2016, but the work was nowhere near complete. While Woolford had hours of lush footage shot by Barr, she needed an editor to partner with to finish the film.

“I had zero experience with editing film,” says Woolford.“I was looking for someone to be excited the way I was excited.” But the editors she spoke with turned out to be very technical and she didn’t find what she was looking for.

In 2017, she began using iMovie, which was available on her computer, to edit video for her vlog, Truth & Story. She learned how to add music and sound effects.

“I started to have a more concrete concept for the film.” Even with her hours and hours of footage, she says, “I knew it would be a short film.”

Eventually, an Instagram post with an image from a film festival caught her eye.

The Moving Body-Moving Image film festival at Barnard College looked like a perfect fit. “The theme was ‘the brown body,’ “ Woolford says. The festival featured a type of hybrid art form called screendance, in which a film is focused around a movement or dance performance, choreographed for the screen. It was exactly the art form Woolford was working in, even if she hadn’t yet been aware of the genre.

The deadline for submissions was about a month away.

Woolford contacted David Hester, a filmmaker and editor based in Germantown, one of the editors she had interviewed. She now knew what she wanted artistically and felt prepared to edit the film herself. Hester advised her about the equipment and software she neededandon a rigorous schedule to meet deadlines for the festival.

“I told myself I was on retreat,” Woolford says. She taught herself to use the film editing software and went about realizing her vision for the film. She worked around the clock. “Pretty much the only time I left the house was to take a walk each day,” she recalls.

For her script, Woolford adapted her short story, “Just After Supper,” performed in voiceover as she moves on screen.

The voiceovers sound like two women telling the same story, slightly out of sync most of the time, occasionally merging for certain phrases.

Woolford entered the film in the festival at Barnard with not much time to spare.

It turns out, Generation wasn’t accepted into the Barnard festival, but the deadline had served its purpose by forcing Woolford to complete the project. She submitted the film far and wide, including the North Beach festival, which is set in an idyllic town with much opportunity to connect with fellow filmmakers.

The 2018 North Beach American Film Festival was the first to selected Generation, and it was also the first to screen the film in June 2018.“It was a glorious weekend,” Woolford recalls.

The storytelling continues. Woolford recently received a Maryland State Arts Council Creativity Grant for her latest project Carter, Clinton, Trump: A Mem-Noir, a hybrid memoir, audio recording andexhibition with augmented reality. And in early spring, both Pamela and Sadie Woolford learned that pieces they had submitted for publication in the same anthology had been accepted, independent of each other. Sadie’s piece is about her mother, Pamela’s grandmother Carrie. “It was selected for an anthology of powerful writings by black women to be published by the writers’ group Zora’s Den,” Woolford says. Carrie was the inspiration for the mother in Woolford’s own story “Just After Supper” as well as the film Generation.’

“Now there’s even more symmetry with our stories, marked by the soul of my grandmother,” Woolford says. “Carrie, taking flight!”

Where and how to see Generation

To see if there are any upcoming local screenings, check Woolford’s website, pamelawoolford.com.

The film will be shown this winter at the Healing Arts Gallery at the Smith Center for Healing and the Arts, 1632 U Street, NW, Washington, D.C., from December through February 2020, as part of the exhibit Up/Rooted, featuring Woolford and sculptor Dalya Luttwak.

Lindsey Yancich, the gallery coordinator for Smith Center’s Joan Hisaoka Healing Arts Gallery, says she was moved by the film. “Pamela’s visual and auditory expression adds layer after layer of emotion,” she says. “I love the mystery, like I had stumbled upon some secret ritual to the past.”

]]>On the Townhttps://hermindmagazine.com/on-the-town/
Tue, 18 Jun 2019 14:04:29 +0000https://hermindmagazine.com/?p=15199Columbia nightlife is coming into its own By Rebecca Kirkman These days, an exciting night out in downtown Columbia is easy to come by. You can sip on a smoked Old Fashioned at 18th & 21st before taking in a show at Merriweather Post Pavilion. Or meet up with friends for a dozen Skipjack oysters […]

Columbia nightlife is coming into its own

By Rebecca Kirkman

Craft cocktails at 18th & 21st.

These days, an exciting night out in downtown Columbia is easy to come by. You can sip on a smoked Old Fashioned at 18th & 21st before taking in a show at Merriweather Post Pavilion. Or meet up with friends for a dozen Skipjack oysters sourced from Tangier Sound, Maryland, paired with craft beer from a nearby brewery at The Walrus Oyster & Ale House.

But longtime locals know it wasn’t always this way—for about the first half century since Columbia’s founding in 1967, there wasn’t much in the way of nightlife in the heart of the city.

A vibrant downtown core was an important part of developer James Rouse’s vision, but several factors—including an economic recession in the 1970s—prevented it from being fully realized.

In fact, early marketing materials created before the city’s opening touted downtown as a cultural hub: “The heart of the city will be the home of art and music schools, theaters, museums, galleries. It will be an opportunity to learn to study painting, sculpture, to visit an exhibit, or to see a play or a film,” read one such piece, says Barbara Kellner, former archivist for the Columbia Association. “It goes on to talk about the nightlife, because, absolutely, that was part of the original goal.”

The development of Columbia is far from finished, however. In fact, Rouse himself understood that Columbia would “take a long time to complete, maybe never, we hope never.”

Picking up where Rouse left off

Residents and officials have debated how to improve the city’s downtown core “almost since its founding,” states the 2010 Downtown Columbia Plan.

New bars, restaurants and venues, part of the first of three phases of development aim to make downtown “become more vibrant and relevant to Columbia’s residents,” according to the plan. Increasing the number of people living downtown, adding more shops and recreational and cultural amenities, and making downtown more attractive and pedestrian-friendly will drive traffic.

The project encompasses three neighborhoods across 391 acres in Downtown Columbia. The first neighborhood, currently in development, is the Merriweather District, a 68-acre, half-moon-shaped property bounded by Route 29 to the east, Broken Land Parkway to the west, and Little Patuxent Parkway to the north. The Howard Hughes Corporation (HHC), a Dallas-based development and construction management company is tasked with bringing it all to pass.

The Merriweather District represents what Downtown Columbia was meant to be, says Vanessa Rodriguez, the developer’s director of marketing.

The district is already home to farm-to-table restaurant Cured and the adjoining speakeasy-style cocktail lounge 18th & 21st, which opened in summer 2018 at One Merriweather, a 200,000-square-foot building anchored by MedStar Health.

“Howard Hughes told us they were trying to accomplish that urban, local, walkable city vibe,” says restaurateur Steve Wecker, who also owns Iron Bridge Wine Company. Wecker says in the early phases of the restaurant’s development, he looked at several locations throughout Columbia and greater Howard County, but decided One Merriweather and its downtown location was the best fit. Seven years ago, Wecker says, he spoke with HHC regional president of Columbia, John DeWolf, who passed away in August 2018. Wecker recalls that DeWolf told him the restaurant was “exactly what we need to kick-start the downtown.”

From construction to community

It takes more than new buildings to create a downtown. At least, that’s the stance of Ian Kennedy, president of the Downtown Columbia Arts and Culture Commission, a nonprofit formed in 2013 to enhance the vibrancy of downtown through cultural activities.

“What was missing from this city, but we’re starting to see more of it, is that center of gravity, that pull toward a place where the community comes together around the arts, around entertainment, around community life,” says Kennedy, whose organization received ownership of Merriweather Post Pavilion in fall 2016.

“We’re trying to take what was great about Columbia’s culture and founding values and reimagine them for the next 50 years,” he says. “Downtowns are where things are happening, and we’re trying to make things happen.”

With Merriweather Post Pavilion under its purview, the commission is working to bring a mix of programming to the venue that will appeal to locals and attract visitors. “It should be a home for great commercial, contemporary music shows, but it should also be a home for the sort of cultural programming that was promised 50 years ago,” says Kennedy. “And I think people also have the same feeling about downtown—like, there should be more there.”

With that in mind, the commission recently hired Darin Atwater as its artistic director. Atwater will bring his Soulful Symphony—an 85-piece orchestra that counts R&B, hip-hop, gospel and other genres of music in its repertoire—with him to Merriweather Post Pavilion as its resident orchestra. “To me, it’s sort of a realization of that original vision for the venue,” says Kennedy.

It’s one step in the larger journey to bolster downtown Columbia as a hub of culture and nightlife. “For the longest time, you could basically describe downtown as the mall and Merriweather, and maybe if you really knew Columbia you would say something about the Lakefront plaza or Clyde’s,” Kennedy points out. “Before June 2018 there was one music venue in downtown Columbia, and it just happened to have a 19,000-person capacity.”

The opening of The Soundry, from the group behind Clyde’s and The Hamilton Live in D.C., offered a new type of entertainment experience to the community. With a 300-person capacity for standing shows and 200 for seated experiences, The Soundry serves street food-inspired fare and craft beer made locally.

It’s an early sign of downtown’s potential, says Kennedy. His hope, he says is that soon Columbia will inspire spontaneous visitors. He says he wants to hear people say, “We’ll just go downtown because something is happening, and you know you’re going to find something great to do.”

Merriweather Post Pavilion

Hitting the town

What to eat, drink, and do in downtown Columbia

EATCuredSince opening in June 2018, this farm-to-table restaurant and bar has attracted a diverse crowd of business diners and concert-goers. Its plaid-shirt-clad wait staff delivers upscale comfort food, craft cocktails and locally brewed beers to guests in a laid-back environment. Try the tuna and avocado tartar paired with the House G&T. 10980 Grantchester Way, Suite 110

The Walrus Oyster & Ale House
Inspired by the Chesapeake Bay, this restaurant and ale house serves scratch cooking and tasty beverages. Indulge in the jumbo lump crab cake, washed down with a white IPA from 3 Stars in Washington, D.C. 10300
Little Patuxent Parkway

]]>Edible Arthttps://hermindmagazine.com/edible-art/
Tue, 18 Jun 2019 13:26:26 +0000https://hermindmagazine.com/?p=15205For summer entertaining, create a beautiful appetizer spread By Jennifer Cohen-Katz If it’s just too hot to throw an elaborate dinner party consider a lighter, but just as fun, appetizer party instead. Fortunately summer is just the season to collect the local ingredients for an artfully arranged cheeseboard, charcuterie tray or antipasto spread. Wander through […]

If it’s just too hot to throw an elaborate dinner party consider a lighter, but just as fun, appetizer party instead. Fortunately summer is just the season to collect the local ingredients for an artfully arranged cheeseboard, charcuterie tray or antipasto spread.

Wander through the producer-only Howard County farmers markets to gather fresh items. For a colorful arrangement keep a rainbow in mind. Balance a white cheese with deep red and blue berries, orange melon, green herbs, yellow tomatoes and purple olives.

Pick out locally sourced honey and small batch jams to wedge in for a sweet touch. Did you know there are quite a few apiaries nearby? Beekeeping has become a popular addition to Maryland farms providing us with the health benefits of regional pollens.

Try to offer at least three cheeses. Whether you hit a Saturday market or go straight to a nearby dairy farm, you can give your tray a balance of flavors. Consider changing it up with a nice goat or sheep’s milk cheese. Balance a soft cheese like burrata with an aged cheese like smoked gouda.

You’ll want a few bottles of chilled wine on the table. Our local Maryland wines pair naturally with native produce so ask for a great recommendation at your favorite winery.

Many of the farms around us are raising quality animals to offer delicious charcuterie. Of course, a dish of fresh crabmeat or smoked oysters tucked into the display will really give your guests a hometown treat.

Our creative bakeries provide breads and crackers of varying shapes and grains to round out the arrangement. Each of these is a miniature work of art in itself.

You won’t have to travel too far in Maryland to pull together an attractive piece of edible art for delicious entertaining this summer.